Shopping Calculator for D2:LoD v1.10

ilvl = character level + 5 when shopping, capped at 99. In Normal difficulty,
there is a further cap, depending on which Act the vendor is in:

Act 1 : 12
Act 2 : 20
Act 3 : 28
Act 4 : 36
Act 5 : 45

When ilvl is 25+ (i.e. character level is 20+), vendors will no longer offer
normal and socketed item, only magic. So vendors in Act 1 and 2 Normal will
always offer normal and socketed items.

The chances of normal items being upgraded to exceptional (in Nightmare or Hell
difficulty) or elite (in Hell difficulty) were taken from a message from
Hammerman, quoted by Ruvanal on
this thread on The Phrozen Forums.

The ilvl of shopped items must be 25+ for an upgrade to occur. The chances of
an upgrade are as follows:

Find Vendors for a Specific Item

Armor

Weapons

All of the normal items in the game have attached to them details of which
vendors can sell them. In Normal difficulty, it's as simple as that - if the
item says "Charsi can sell me", then Charsi can sell it.

In Nightmare difficulty, there is a chance that any item a vendor has to sell
will be upgraded to its exceptional equivalent. But, to complicate matters,
many items have a second (better) normal item which they will always be
upgraded to if they are not upgraded to exceptional. For example, a
short sword has a "NightmareUpgrade" of scimitar. So if a vendor can sell a
short sword in Normal, in Nightmare they will be replaced by either a gladius
(exceptional short sword) or scimitar. So many of the lowliest normal items
(e.g. short swords, leather gloves, caps, etc.) will never be sold in
Nightmare. Better items do not have this NightmareUpgrade, so they will be as
in Normal if they are not upgraded to exceptional. For example, crystal swords
do not have a NightmareUpgrade. Ormus sells crystal swords in Normal - in
Nightmare, he still sells crystal swords, but some will be upgraded to
dimensional blades.

Hell difficulty is different. Once again, many items have a "HellUpgrade", a
better normal item that they will be replaced by. Short swords, for instance,
are now replaced by war swords. However, only items that do not have a
HellUpgrade are eligible to be upgraded to exceptional or elite. So a short
sword will always be replaced by a war sword, never a gladius or
falcata. A vendor who could sell war swords in Normal, however, can now have
those war swords (which do not have a HellUpgrade) upgraded to ancient swords
or mythical swords.

A couple of interesting effects fall out of this. First of all, no vendor in
Act 1 Hell will ever sell an exceptional or elite item. Everything Charsi,
Gheed and Akara have on their shopping lists are lowly items which do have
HellUpgrades. Second, there are a lot of the lower-end elite items which will
never be sold by vendors. Falcatas, ataghans, legend swords - you won't see
these any shops.

Vendor

Difficulty

This panel presents a list of each item a vendor can sell, based on the rules
described in the "how does this work?" help under "Find Vendors for a Specific
Item".

A further rule to consider is that items will only appear when the qlvl of the
item type is less than or equal to the ilvl of the shopped items (which is your
character level + 5). So, for instance, Charsi in Normal difficulty can sell
ring mail. But since the qlvl of ring mail is 11, you won't see any in her
trade window until your character hits level 6.

The stricter rules concerning upgrades in Hell can be clearly seen here -
observe, for instance, how much longer Charsi's or Gheed's trade list is in
Nightmare than in Hell, thanks to their normal list being comprised entirely of
lowly items which can be upgraded to exceptional in Nightmare, but are not
eligible for upgrading to exceptional or elite in Hell.